


The Waste Land

by GretchenSinister



Series: My Top Ten Blackice Fics [11]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:49:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21537751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "Pitch approaches Jack and asks the younger spirit to join him. Jack agrees……All according to the Guardians’ plan.Jack’s role is to find out what Pitch is up to and warn the Guardians before anyone gets hurt. However, after spending some time with Pitch, who he has quite a lot in common with, Jack finds his loyalties starting to divide.Pitch, on the other hand, knew from the start what was going on. But if the Guardians are going to play dirty, he’ll do the same back and seduce Jack onto being on his side for real.TLDR: Jack is a double agent, but it’s getting less certain which side he actually is on."You’re all familiar with T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”, right? Anyway, here is the aftermath of Jack trying to be a double agent. (It didn’t work out. AT ALL.) All quotes from “The Waste Land”. Sorry for the shitty spacing but I am way too tired to deal with tumblr’s crap right now.
Relationships: Jack Frost/Pitch Black
Series: My Top Ten Blackice Fics [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1552192
Kudos: 27
Collections: Blackice Short Fics





	The Waste Land

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 6/4/2013.

1.

“April is the cruellest month…

…Winter kept us warm, covering

Earth in forgetful snow…”

He had betrayed them all, and they had responded accordingly. That had been just. What had been cruel was how little surprise any of them had shown.

2.

“And I will show you something different from either

Your shadow at morning striding behind you

Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”

He was only supposed to pretend to be seduced into joining Pitch’s cause, but after spending some time (such little time! so very little time!) with the Nightmare King, he had begun to be held by a terrible fascination whenever he was in Pitch’s presence. Even while clawing his way back to power, any calm he presented only a mask thin as tissue paper covering a seething cauldron of desperation and rage and pain, there was a magnificence about him, the magnificence of the impossible. What could be more familiar than a shadow? But Pitch was something far more than that, no matter that the Guardians had said. He was fear and mutability, immortal and constantly changing. How could a frozen boy resist?

3.

“…Fear death by water.”

Regaining his memories had pulled him back towards the Guardians, but too much of his heart remained with Pitch. He had thought he would be able to choose both of them. He had thought he would be able to reconcile them. He hadn’t counted on undamming floods of emotion they had all kept in reservoir for centuries.

4.

“Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.”

He knows he is lost when he looks into Sandy’s eyes when he returns, glowing gold and knowing all, perhaps, even, in the end, knowing Pitch better than Jack himself. In the end, all Jack had known was Pitch’s act, the act for vengeance and not for love of any kind. Sandy had faced the nightmare sand and returned. Jack doubts he could. He doubts that Pitch would bother trying to kill him in such a way.

5.

“Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.”

He’ll never be able to rejoin the Guardians. He’ll never be able to rejoin Pitch. The Guardians don’t want him for what he did. Pitch doesn’t want him because he only needed him to do one thing.

Fine.

Not fine.

6.

“Who is the third who walks always beside you?

When I count, there are only you and I together

But when I look ahead up the white road

There is always another one walking beside you

Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded

I do not know whether a man or a woman

–But who is that on the other side of you?”

With the Guardians, he had a chance to be seen. Now, he feels more wraithlike than ever. The feeling only increases day by day. There is no reason to suspect it will ever diminish.

7.

“In this decayed hole among the mountains

In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing

Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel

There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home,

It has no windows, and the door swings,

Dry bones can harm no one.”

Jack can conceive no edges to his wasteland. There will be no rain for him on the red rock, or the dry grass, or in the city, no matter how hard he tries.

No rain.

Only snow.


End file.
